Little Changes Bring Lots of Kindness

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Along with the new 2018-19 school year starting up at HMHS, the students and staff are seeing some new improvements in the school (and I am not talking about the construction). Two significant changes that have caught the attention of those in the school have been the Kindness Jar and the newly designed Bulletin Boards.

Kindness Jar

The Kindness Jar is located in the main office on Mrs. Marcello’s desk. Next to it is a pad of yellow paper. If a student witnesses an act of kindness done by another student or teacher, he or she can write down the name of the other student or faculty member on a slip of the yellow paper, and place it in the jar. When the jar is substantially filled, Mrs. McHale will pull one slip of paper out of the jar. The person who fulfilled this act of kindness will then receive a prize.

The two names drawn from the jar so far have been Mr. Fluharty and senior Jay Foley. Foley’s prize was one week of prime parking in the faculty lot. Congratulations to both!!

HMHS Bulletin Boards

Mrs. Gaspari, the Anti-Bullying Specialist at HMHS, decorated a bulletin board for the week of respect, which was the week of September 24. The bulletin board promoted the different days of the week of Respect and also encouraged students to “Visit the Kindness Jar in the Main Office!”. There were also bags of candy on the bulletin board for students to take. Considering the hungry nature of a bulldawg, the candies in each bag were quickly devoured by those walking in the building.

Another feel-good Bulletin Board is the one in the always crowded hallway connecting the first floor of the A building to the humanities hallway of the C building. This bulletin board features teachers’ advice to their high school selves. This board had captured lots of attention from students and has become, according to the HMHS twitter page, a “big hit”. There and many short and powerful mantras like Mr. Mill’s “enjoy the moment you are currently in!” and Ms. Schwartz’s “you are enough :)”. Some are specifically music-oriented like Mr. Kornak’s “play guitar everyday!! Listen + Rock out to at least one great song everyday!!” and Mr. Miller’s “Learn to play an Instrument!”. Many also focus on being your true self, which makes them very heart-warming and impactful. Mrs. Haynes says “Think less about what others think about me or trying to fit in, and more about what brought me joy and makes me proud of myself”. Mr. Thomas advised “Don’t spend a second worrying about artificial and absurd high school social status. Be yourself, be weird, pursue what you love”. Lastly, Mrs. Ledouxadvised her high school-self to “be myself, to be kind… to stand up for what’s right even if that means going against my friends”. These are not the only teachers who put up advice, in fact 62 staff members addressed their high school selves on this one bulletin board alone! This bulletin board is worth taking a different route to a class to see. All students can relate to at least one of the pieces of advice, and a lot of the advice can significantly change your mindset for the better.